Is Being Moderate a bad Thing?

[Marnetmar]

From both sides of the isle I often hear criticism of moderates. Personally, I feel that there's nothing wrong with being able to question/disagree with the side of the fence that you sit on, but that's just my personal perception, coming from, of course, a moderate.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Yes, the cult of false reasonableness is pretty poisonous for the most part.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

It is on this forum.

No, of course it's not.

[traininthedistance]

It's neither necessarily good nor necessarily bad.  Being pragmatic and using moderation in one's rhetoric can often be a good thing, but on the other hand it's more important to get the facts of an issue right than to stake out a middle ground for the sake of a middle ground.  

[Zioneer]

It's neither necessarily good nor necessarily bad.  Being pragmatic and using moderation in one's rhetoric can often be a good thing, but on the other hand it's more important to get the facts of an issue right than to stake out a middle ground for the sake of a middle ground.  

Basically this. It's good on many issues, and having the appearance of moderation is nice, but the truth is not always in the middle.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

If you're like most of my party, then yes.

[Incipimus iterum]

its not a bad thing to be a Moderate im a moderate overall but not on every single issue it depends on some issues im a conservative (Spending, Gun Control) while on some issues im a Liberal(Environment, Energy).

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Being a moderate as result of your convictions is not bad. Being a moderate hero is.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

If you deviate so much as an inch from my views, you're the scum of the earth.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

"Being a moderate is bad if you're a Democrat but good if you're a Republican."

[Maxwell]

Being a moderate isn't bad, but none of the "moderates" in the Senate are anything like real moderates. It's one thing to be pragmatic, its another thing to just have no principles and no ideas and to essentially be a "moderate hero" (Like Bayh, Warner, ect. ect.)

[Cobbler]

Depends.

If they are just people who think we should always "split the difference" and water things down just for the sake of being moderate, then yes. The mindset that both sides are equally at fault for everything is a bad thing that these type of people have, and its just as bad as blind partisanship in my eyes.

If its more about you having some positions that are not supported by your side of the spectrum (for example, conservative with some liberal positions, and vice a versa), then I'd say its a good thing because you still hold convictions. There is nothing wrong with having positions that don't line up with your party.

[morgieb]

Being a moderate as result of your convictions is not bad. Being a moderate hero is.

[Mr. Taft Republican]

Not unless you live in the US.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Yes, the German Centre Party did great damage.

[dead0man]

Of course not.  I find it odd anybody would think so. 

(of course the only person in the thread that admits voting "yes" is one of the odder birds here...but kudos for at least having the gonads your fellow "yes" voters failed to have)

[Franzl]

No.

But it seems that people that consider themselves moderate, above all, usually seem to place more value on that feature than anything else.

Being moderate isn't a bad thing if that is the result of your conclusions on various policy decisions and you legitimately come to a place that is in the center of political discourse.

What is bad, and this is far more common than being a "true moderate", is when you define yourself as a moderate and then base your other views around that description, practically (more or less intentionally) to find a way to stay in the center, rather than hold an "extreme" position.

[King]

I'm a postmoderate.  We pomos are different from traditional moderates.  We place everything on a political matrix in the shape of a sphere.  We place any sentence that can be identified as a "political stance" on the surface of said sphere as an extremist position.  We then fill the rest of the sphere with empty space and place our position at the center.

The centered position is formed by collecting all the statements of the sphere surface, breaking them down as words, and finding the ten most common words spoken.   These ten words the form the ten word sentence of our belief on any said issue.

[RogueBeaver]

Being a moderate as result of your convictions is not bad. Being a moderate hero is.

[Goldwater]

Being a moderate as result of your convictions is not bad. Being a moderate hero is.

[TNF]

Being a moderate as result of your convictions is not bad. Being a moderate hero is.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Being a moderate as result of your convictions is not bad. Being a moderate hero is.

[politicallefty]

I agree with the majority sentiment in this topic. People like Joe Lieberman totally disgust me. On the other hand, I can accept people like Mary Landrieu and Mark Pryor. They are at least consistent in their beliefs and represent states that are quite conservative. Many so-called moderates seem to only be so in order to seek attention, which I completely object to.

I also strongly agree with this:

If they are just people who think we should always "split the difference" and water things down just for the sake of being moderate, then yes. The mindset that both sides are equally at fault for everything is a bad thing that these type of people have, and its just as bad as blind partisanship in my eyes.

I'd include Joe Lieberman in that group. The ACA would have been significantly better were it not for his antics.

[Lambsbread]

No, of course not.

[wan]

no not at all.